Happy Birthday Carlos Hathcock

” When retired Marine Corps Gunnery Sergeant Carlos Hathcock II died at the age of 57 on Feb. 26, 1999, his legend had long since chiseled its way into the pantheon of Marine Corps history.

He’d served almost 20 years in the Corps, including two tours as a sniper during the Vietnam War. A killer more deadly and silent than Hathcock finally had him in the cross hairs and pulled the trigger, ending his extraordinary life.

The medical term for that stealthy, relentless force is multiple sclerosis, a slow, progressive terminal malady that attacks the central nervous system. MS can cause paralysis, spasms and the loss of coordination and muscle control.”

This trophy is given to the winner of the 1000 yard shooting match.

” was a US Marine Corps Gunnery Sergeant who served as a sniper in the Vietnam War. With 93 confirmed kills, he was the 4th most effective sniper in American history, trailing behind Adelbert F Waldron (109), Charles Mawhinney (103), and Eric R England (98). His exploits, both as a courageous soldier and a sniper, made him a legend in the Marine Corps. Hathcock became a major developer of the United States Marine Corps Sniper training program. Not only was Carlos extremely lethal as a sniper, but he was also a brave marine; he was awarded the Silver Star for his act in 1969 of saving the lives of seven fellow Marines after the amphibious tractor on which they were riding struck a mine. Hathcock was knocked unconscious, but awoke in time to race back through the flames to save his comrades.

Carlos Hathcock was born in Little Rock, Arkansas, on May 20, 1942. Since his parents had separated, he lived with his grandmother in the country where he grew up. At a young age, Carlos learned to use a rifle, which his father had brought from Europe after World War II. Then, he would hunt wild animals to help feed his poor family.In 1959, at the age of 17, Carlos Hathcock joined the Marine Corps. Before being shipped to Vietnam, he showed his natural skills as a marksman on the rifle range at Camp Pendleton where he was undergoing recruit training, winning the Pacific Division rifle championship while he was deployed in Hawaii as a member of Company E, 2nd Battalion, 4th Marines. In 1966, he was sent to Vietnam and became a sniper after Captain Edward J. Land Jr. had pushed the Marines into raising snipers in every platoon.” ”

” A shopper with a concealed weapons permit shot and killed a man who was trying to carjack a woman Saturday outside a Utah grocery store, officers said.

The 31-year-old male shooter was in Macey’s parking lot in Orem, 45 miles south of Salt Lake City, when he heard a woman’s screams as she was being pulled from her SUV by the suspect, investigators said.

The man told police he went to assist the woman, and the 27-year-old male suspect lunged at him in an attempt to grab his gun.

The man fired one round at the suspect, hitting him in the chest. The suspect later died at a hospital.”

” The folks at Moms Demand Action believe that Kroger is somehow a magical space where nothing bad ever happens, and ridicules anyone who thinks that they should be allowed to carry a concealed handgun on the premises. Time and again their fantasy has been patently disproven, but this time there’s a twist. At a Kroger in Arkansas this past Wednesday, an elderly man was being savagely beaten by seven people. One man, armed with a concealed handgun, decided to step in and try to save that man’s life. This is the true story of how a concealed handgun at Kroger saved lives.

Do you believe America’s financial problems from 2008 have been fixed?

Do you think we’ll have another banking crisis in the next few years, or a problem with our currency?

If you are concerned about these possibilities, you are not alone.

After all: What we are witnessing in America today is unprecedented.

Our government has embarked on a gross, out-of-control experiment, expanding the money supply 400% in just six years, and more than doubling our national debt since 2006.

It took our nation 216 years to rack up the first $8.5 trillion in debt… then just 8 more years to double that amount.

And this is precisely why so many questions about the economy and our future remain. For example.. “

The tale of financial woe continues …

” The American people deserve to know what our government has done, what’s coming next, and what you must do to protect yourself and your family from the disaster our government has created.

Many of the smartest people in the industry… like CIA and Pentagon insider Jim Rickards… hedge fund multimillionaire Jim Rogers… and superstar investor Kyle Bass (the minimum to invest with Bass is $5 million), are all taking precautions against a serious market crash and financial crisis.

” It is not technically a “Defensive Knife Use” since the hero of our story was swinging a Samurai katana, but we are going to count it. Unlike the “Middle-Aged Mormon Ninja Bishop” who simply needed to brandish a sword to thwart an assault, a 49-year old Argentinian homeowner went positively Medieval on the quartet of thugs who broke into his home recently. Things did not go well for the burglars.

“ Mr Costa, 49, and his wife Christina, 48, were asleep when the men, who were armed with two pistols, broke in at around 3.30am.

Police commissioner Mariano Zarate said: ‘In a moment when the attackers were not paying attention, the house owner took a samurai sword and defended himself, injuring the attackers and making them run away…

…Bleeding heavily, the driver lost control of the vehicle and hit a stationary car forcing all four to go to hospital for emergency treatment.

Police initially arrested two men and one woman, but another man who hid was forced to come back to hospital the next day due to serious sword injuries.” “

” As a resident of the upstate portion of New York (not the Big Apple) I have written frequently about the depressing, negative effects which liberal tax and spend policies combined with strangling regulatory burdens have had on the state, as well as the economic death spiral which has followed. Many of the complaints I hear from residents of the more rural, upstate region center on the unbalanced power held by New York City and the complete disconnect between the government and the more conservative, rural communities to the north and west. But even as a person studying and experiencing these effects first hand, I don’t think I ever grasped the full impact of this disparity in the way it’s spelled out by William Tucker of the American Media Institute.

Binghamton, New York — once a powerhouse of industry — is now approaching Detroit in many economic measures, according to the U.S. Census. In Binghamton, more than 31 percent of city residents are at or below the federal poverty level compared to 38 percent in Detroit. Average household income in Binghamton at $30,179 in 2012 barely outpaces Detroit’s $26,955. By some metrics, Binghamton is behind Detroit. Some 45 percent of Binghamton residents own their dwellings while more than 52 percent of Detroit residents are homeowners. Both “Rust Belt” cities have lost more than 2 percent of their populations.

Binghamton is not alone. Upstate New York — that vast 50,000-square mile region north of New York City — seems to be in an economic death spiral.

The fate of the area is a small scene in a larger story playing out across rural America. As the balance of population shifts from farms to cities, urban elites are increasingly favoring laws and regulations that benefit urban voters over those who live in small towns or out in the country. The implications are more than just economic: it’s a trend that fuels the intense populism and angry politics that has shattered the post-World War II consensus and divided the nation.

That comparison between the city of Binghamton and the wreckage of Detroit is a true eye opener, but it’s not the only such story in the non-city portions of the state. IBM was once the powerhouse of employment in the greater Binghamton area, employing more than 16,000 people as recently as the late 1980s. Today the entire complex has been sold to local developers and the computer giant employs a few hundred people (many of whom are contractors) renting out a tiny portion of the old complex. Kodak employed 62,000 people in Rochester during the same period as IBM’s heyday. Today there are roughly 4,000 workers. Xerox and Bausch & Lomb were also huge employers there but are now largely (or entirely) gone.

These stories are repeated over and over again in cities and towns across the upstate region, so it’s more than coincidence. Tucker ties it all together. “

Above is a video of the demonstration for those that understand Portuguese and much more may be found here and here .

” Microphone in hand and standing atop the sound truck, the raspy-voiced protest leader jabbed his finger into the air shouting for the ouster of Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff, igniting wild cheers from the crowd below him.

” What Lula and Dilma have done shouldn’t just result in their being banned from politics. It should result in them being in jail!” Kim Kataguiri yelled, denouncing Rousseff and her predecessor, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.”

” The March 15 demonstration was the largest Sao Paulo had seen in more than three decades, since 1984 protests demanding democratic elections after a long dictatorship.

But more surprising than the crowd of more than 200,000, according to the Datafolha polling and statistics agency, was the fact it was being led by Kataguiri, a skinny, 19-year-old college dropout, and other young Brazilian activists inspired by libertarianism and conservative free-market ideals.

The grandson of Japanese immigrants, Kataguiri is a social media star whose quirky videos skewer Rousseff and the ruling party’s social welfare policies. His ascent as a protest figure has been rapid. Two years ago, when protests erupted across Brazil over corruption and poor public services, Kataguiri was a high schooler who avoided the unrest.”

” The deadliest weapon on the battlefield is neither bullet nor gun; it’s the lone sniper. Journey inside the science and psychology behind the greatest shots in military history, through the scope of the world’s most extreme marksmen. Deconstruct the missions, ranging from Vietnam to Iraq to Afghanistan, presented by the men who were there and pulled the trigger. For the first time on American television Canadian sniper Robert Furlong, tells the story of his history-making shot in Afghanistan–striking a Taliban fighter from 1.5 miles away. Ballistics… Tactics… Weaponry… Stalking… This two-hour special examines these critical components in vivid detail, combining interviews with cinematic reenactments, CGI and present day shooting demonstrations to put the viewer squarely inside the crosshairs.”

” Birmingham has been chosen as one of six cities nationwide to serve as a pilot site for a national initiative on restoring relationships between law enforcement and citizens.

Attorney General Eric Holder made the announcement today. The $4.7 million National Initiative for Building Community Trust and Justice was announced in April and is a partnership between federal officials and criminal justice experts focused on providing training, policy and research to address distrust between citizens and law enforcement.

The other pilot cities are: Ft. Worth, Gary, Indiana, Minneapolis, Pittsburgh and Stockton. The initiative comes after several high profile fatal police-involved shootings.”

This can only end badly . Considering that the Justice department does not exactly inspire faith in government how is it’s attempt to co-opt the police forces of numerous cities going to restore faith in law enforcement ? It’s just one more step towards the nationalization of police . Read more here

A message to the citizens of the FIRST six cities to fall under federal control; if you think your local PD is unresponsive to your pleas and that increasing the bureaucracy with a federal level of “supervision” will help , then you really have not been paying attention these last few years . You , and the rest of us , will rue the day that the Feds take over your law enforcement duties .

” Lasqueti is a small island between Vancouver and Vancouver Island, home to a little known community of off-gridders who take pride in their isolation from both mainstream culture and mainland Canada. In this short documentary film, a journalist from 16×9 News goes to meet some of Lasqueti’s characters and find out more about life on this beautiful land that time forgot.

With very little industry or economy, most of the residents live simply, taking what they need from the landand having next to no carbon footprint (and little need for money). The 2011 census recorded 426 people living in Lasqueti, who meet up to socialize in the island’s (one) bar and cafe.

Lasqueti also has a free store, where people can leave or collect items without any monetary exchange. Just one hour by boat from Vancouver island, Lasqueti doesn’t have a tourist industry, booming economy or any industry to speak of, but those who live there say that they enjoy the sense of timelessness, community, and freedom that their home provides.”

” This week, lawmakers in New Hampshire, Kansas, Mississippi, and Montana advanced bills that, if made into law, would no longer require special permits to carry concealed weapons in public. Five states already have no concealed permit requirement – part of a broader trend toward so-called constitutional carry.

Also this week, Sen. John Cornyn (R) of Texas introduced federal legislation that would turn concealed weapons permits into something like state driver’s licenses, which are legal anywhere in the United States. The measure nearly passed a Democrat-controlled Senate last year, meaning it could well end up on President Obama’s desk in 2015.

With about one gun already in circulation for every American, critics, including many in law enforcement, say constitutional carry will only make life more dangerous. However, so far, studies have failed to conclusively prove or disprove another correlation – between expanded gun carry and the decline in general and violent crime rates that has occurred in the US over the past two decades.

The operative idea for many gun owners: It’s law-abiding citizens, not the state, who should make the decision as to when carrying a gun is reasonable, or necessary. At least anecdotally, a lot of people who proclaim to be open or concealed carriers actually holster a gun only rarely, or arm themselves only for nighttime commutes or journeys into what they perceive as dangerous areas.

“ What I’ve seen is, for many people it’s more about, ‘I want to be the one to make the decision [about whether to carry], and I have that right,’ ” says Brian Anse Patrick, a professor at the University of Toledo in Ohio, concealed-carry instructor, and author of the upcoming book, “Propagunda.” “While the doors to gun carry are opening more and more, it all still comes down to practicality. A lot of people with permits, who have gone to classes, don’t follow through [with carry]. You have to be a really determined person to go through this whole thing.” “

” State legislators around the country have introduced more than 200 bills aiming to nullify regulations and laws coming out of Washington, D.C., as they look to rein in the federal government.

The legislative onslaught, which includes bills targeting federal restrictions on firearms, experimental treatments and hemp, reflects growing discord between the states and Washington, state officials say.

“ You have a choice,” said Kentucky state Rep. Diane St. Onge (R). “To sit back and not do anything or say anything and let overregulation continue — or you have the alternative choice to speak up about it and say, ‘We know what you are doing or intend to do and we do not think that it is constitutional and we as a state are not going to stand for it.’ ”

Last month, St. Onge introduced H.B. 13 to nullify federal gun control laws within Kentucky state lines. Similar legislation has been introduced in seven other states.

“ This law is saying the sheriff and those under him do not have to follow federal regulations,” she said.

Friction between the states and the federal government dates back to the nation’s earliest days. But there has been an explosion of bills in the last year, according to the Los Angeles-based Tenth Amendment Center, which advocates for the state use of nullification to tamp down on overzealous regulation.

“ People are becoming more and more concerned about the overreach of the federal government,” said center spokesman Mike Maharrey. “They feel the federal government is trying to do too much, it’s too big and it’s getting more and more in debt.” “

” Keith Hearn was getting out of his car in front of his home in Chicago’s South Shore neighborhood when, as he tells it, police pulled up and told him he had committed a minor traffic offense.

Hearn, 34, has a concealed-carry license and said he voluntarily told the officers he had a handgun on him. Nonetheless, he said officers arrested him and took him to their station, claiming his gun was partly showing. After checking, he said, police found the concealed-carry law allows a gun to be “mostly” concealed, and let him go without charges.

” I was disgusted,” Hearn said. “Why was I arrested, handcuffed in front of my neighborhood, when I didn’t break any laws?”

Hearn is among about 92,000 people who got licenses to carry a hidden gun in public last year in Illinois — the last state in the union to legalize “concealed carry,” as it’s called. Since it went into effect more than a year ago, the law has prompted neither the rash of shootings that opponents feared, nor a wave of crimes prevented through the intervention of armed citizens.

Instead, there are ongoing disputes over who should be allowed to carry a gun, and where. Those battles are being played out in the courts and occasionally, on the streets, as in Hearn’s account, which Chicago police would not comment on or confirm.

Some citizens who were turned down for concealed-carry permits say they are being denied their constitutional right by a secretive state licensing board. Yet some law enforcement officials warn that dangerous people are being allowed to walk around with loaded weapons.”

” A home invasion ended in violence Thursday morning when a 74-year-old homeowner shot and killed an armed suspect who had broken into his home.

The incident occurred at 4:47 a.m. in the 15000 block of Flanders, according to Chief Jeff Smith.

“ The defendant entered the home through a window and had a firearm with him,” Smith said. “The house was occupied by a man and his wife. He had a legal firearm and confronted the intruder. He ended up shooting him and the defendant died at the scene.”

Police are working to identify the invader and have declined to release the names of the homeowners.

“ As he walked through the house, the home invader confronted him with his (handgun),” Coombs said. “(The homeowner) shot the home invader, and the home invader died here on the scene.” “

“ We are engaged in a war of ideas, with our principal enemy: an ideology…. Islamic terrorism is not caused by poverty, lack of education, sexual deprivation…or lack of economic opportunity…. There are two kinds of Jihad: terrorism, and slow penetration of Western institutions subverting Western laws and customs from within. Ignorance, naivety, arrogance, political correctness, sheer laziness, sentimentality…have led to Islamic successes in penetrating the universities, from the Voice of America, the Pentagon…PBS, to the universities and colleges where Islamic propaganda is shamelessly and openly disseminated.”

He likens the battle against Islamic radicals to the Cold War. But, he is mistaken in one sense. It was a proud and patriotic America that confronted the USSR. In the decades following World War II, most people in the United States were happy to celebrate our contributions to the defeat of Nazism and the liberation and restoration of Europe. Americans believed in themselves and their country.

Today, we have a president, and a younger generation, that views the U.S. through a different prism – one clouded by Vietnam, racial discord, and now the war with Iraq. It is “cool” to distrust and disdain the U.S., and the media feeds the skepticism. In covering the U.S. engagement in Afghanistan, for instance, news organizations have seldom reported on the military’s successes in building schools and providing basic services in that country; they prefer to zero in on instances of civilian casualties and misdeeds by our soldiers. The coverage leads us to doubt our military, and our morals.”

” There’s a new theory that could explain how a cat, presumed dead and buried, somehow clawed out of his grave and appeared at the neighbor’s house five days later.

” We have two cats and they play together all the time and they roam around with each other,” Ellis Hutson, the cat’s owner, explained. “He might have went looking for his brother and dug him up — but I have no idea.”

Hutson has been confused and perplexed since last Monday when he found his black-and-white cat named Bart curled up in a ball and covered in blood in the middle of the road.

” He was stiff, wasn’t moving, no sign of life,” he said.

Hutson — too distraught to grab the shovel himself — asked his buddy David Liss to take Bart to his final resting place.

” As far as I know he wasn’t breathing,” Liss explained. “I looked at it, and I looked at it, and I didn’t see the chest moving up and down or anything and I said, ‘you know, well look at the blood, it’s dead.’ “

Liss said he put Bart in the ground under about a foot of dirt, right off the road from where Hutson found him “dead”.

But Bart wasn’t dead.

Five days later, the cat showed up at neighbor Dusty Allbritton’s home, and she called Hutson.”

” That’s precisely what the shopkeeper should have done, but it took stones to do it. This man has a different mindset than most Americans. He’s witnessed firsthand the violence in Iraq. It’s an everyday occurrence there and you don’t stand around being petrified. You live and you survive by listening to your survival instincts. He reacted without hesitation, snatching the gun away from the criminal before he could fire it and that probably saved his life. The thug was sticking the gun directly in his face, but there was no fear. There was just instinctual reaction.”

” The Metropolitan Police Department has granted its first concealed carry permits, effectively ending the longstanding ban on carrying handguns in public that was deemed unconstitutional by a federal judge last year.

According to an MPD official, eight concealed carry permits have been granted and 11 denied since the department started accepting permit applications in late October. Since then, 69 people applied for the permits, though three were cancelled at the request of the applicant. Of the 66 completed applications, 34 were filed by D.C. residents and 32 by non-residents.

Last July, Judge Frederick Scullin ruled that the city’s ban on carrying handguns — which had been in effect for 40 years — was an unconstitutional infringement on the Second Amendment. It followed a 2008 Supreme Court ruling that overturned the city’s ban on handgun ownership; since then, over 3,000 handguns have been registered for use in the home.

The city’s rules also restrict where a gun-owner can carry their gun. Public transportation, schools, government buildings, bars, stadiums, and hospitals are off limits, as are protests and an area around the White House. Individuals carrying handguns also have to remain 1,000 feet away from U.S. or foreign dignitaries.

After an application is filed, MPD has 90 days to accept or reject it. City rules prohibit the department from releasing any specific information on the applicants or the reasons they cite in their applications, but one official with knowledge of the permitting process said that some of the applicants who were rejected simply cited the Second Amendment as a reason for requesting a concealed carry permit.”

Basic survival tips will be followed with some detailed ideas on how this country should be run once we take over.

IF you’re reading this before MARTIAL LAW is imposed by the current corrupt government, and IF you are reading this while you still nominally under Constitutional Law, it’s urgent you read from the beginning to end so as to appreciate the opportunities you currently have to not only protect yourself and yours, but to attempt to stop all of this from ever happening.

Rule #1: NEVER TRUST THE GOVERNMENT UNLESS THEY SAY THEY ARE GOING TO KILL YOU … “

” Forget carrying a Swiss Army Knife – if you want to be prepared, all you really need is a bracelet.

Portland-based Leatherman Tool Group is about to launch wrist wear that hides 25 different tools.

Dubbed ‘Tread’, the bracelet is made of 17-4 stainless steel links which each hide two or three items such as wrenches and screwdrivers.”

” ‘ The idea originated on a trip to Disneyland with my family,’ said Leatherman’s president Ben Rivera, who was an engineer with the company for 22 years. ‘ I was stopped at the gate by security for carrying a knife, when what they had actually seen was my Skeletool.

I was unwilling to give it up, so they made me take it all the way back to my hotel room.’ ‘ I knew there had to be another way to carry my tools with me that would be accepted by security,’ he said.”

” SONS OF LIBERTY, the three-night, six-hour event, follows a defiant and radical group of young men–Sam Adams, John Adams, Paul Revere, John Hancock and Dr. Joseph Warren–as they band together in secrecy to change the course of history and make America a nation.”

” The Sons of Liberty sparked a revolution, the cast depicting them includes: Ben Barnes(The Chronicles of Narnia) as Sam Adams, a natural born leader with charisma and a penchant for mischief; Ryan Eggold (The Black List) as Dr. Joseph Warren, a doctor and man of conscience and integrity; Michael Raymond-James (Jack Reacher, Terriers, True Blood) as Paul Revere, a veteran who wholeheartedly joins forces with Sam Adams; Rafe Spall(Prometheus, Life of Pi) as John Hancock, the wealthiest man in Boston at the time; andHenry Thomas (E.T. The Extraterrestrial, Gangs of New York, Legends of the Fall) as John Adams, a lawyer and the conservative, smart cousin of Sam Adams. Additionally, Marton Csokas (Equalizer, The Lord of the Rings, Rogue) plays the ferocious General Thomas Gage who is sent to handle the colonial unrest in Boston; Emily Berrington (24: Live Another Day) as Margaret Gage; Jason O’Mara (The Good Wife, Terra Nova, Life on Mars) as General George Washington and Dean Norris (Breaking Bad, Under the Dome, Men, Women & Children) as the brilliant yet mischievous diplomat Benjamin Franklin.”

” Calling themselves the Sons of Liberty, they light the spark that ignited our revolution. While many of their names have become legendary, this group of young rebels didn’t start off as noble patriots. They were a new generation of young American men from varied backgrounds, struggling to find purpose in their lives. They were looking for equality, but they found something greater: Independence.”

” SONS OF LIBERTY is a dramatic interpretation of events that sparked a revolution. It is historical fiction, not a documentary. The goal of our miniseries is to capture the spirit of the time, convey the personalities of the main characters, and focus on real events that have shaped our past. For historical information about the Sons of Liberty and the dawning of the American Revolution, please read the Historian’s View section on history.com/sons. “

We applaud the History Channel for creating this event and feel that , regardless of the political biases that will undoubtedly reveal themselves to some faction(s) of the viewing public , any piece of widely received entertainment that fosters conversation about some of our defining moments as a people around the dinner table and water cooler is a great thing indeed .